Friday, December 18, 2009

So Sarah and I have been on the road for a couple days now. We had an incredible first few days in Singapore. We got in late to the airport and crashed for a spell until we could grab the train into town to drop off our bags. After doing so we took off for the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which were absolutely dazzling. Sarah said they were ranked #1 in the world by some magazine and I can definately see why.

After the gardens we checked in to The Hive offically and got cleaned up a bit. Then we went to Little India and explored the markets, ate some delicious Muslim food, and cruised around the streets a bit.

The next day we went to the Bukit Tihan Nature Reserve. Played with some Macque long-tail monkies and hiked through the primary jungle. Really incredible foliage and some of the largest trees I've ever seen.

Now we are in Kuala Lumpur. It's our last day here before we take off to the Cameroon Highlands. We've been a bit out of sorts since getting here, but are getting into the rythme of this wild city.

The hostel we are staying in (The Raggae Rest House) has been just that. A quiet place to escape the maddeningly chaotic streets of the city. Everywhere you turn there is something to take in. It's a mixture of gritty and flashy. Buildings covered in green moss with crackes running throughout, on the verge of losing a chunk here and there; mixed with posh hotels, frantic street markets and people--so many people. I have to stop from time to time just to look at the diversity of this city. Malaysian, Chinese, Muslim, European, American, Thai...etc. Too much to take it all in. Trying to just relax today and let things flow a bit more. It's easy for me to get caught up in the trying to absorb it all, but not very wise.

I've been snapping pictures non-stop, so I've hoping to get a couple gems. Unfortunately it's been raining off and on since we've been here, so lighting hasn't been the best.

We decide to just walk off from the hostel yesterday and wander. We ended up finding a small interior city park with signs that warned of scorpions, snakes, and so forth. The forest was dark and wet, so we took care to walk slowly. The end of the trail carried us up to the Communications Tower (4th largest in the world I believe) and we went up and walked around a bit. Then headed over to the Petronas Towers for a gander. Incredible to stand a the base of these two towers and take in their enormity.

Did a bit of shopping in the Central Market in the late afternoon and Sarah found a nice skirt and necklace. Lots of great deals to be had, just nowhere to put anything substantial. I'm really looking forward to the markets in Bangkok, which are suppose to be some of the best in the world for treasure hunting.